"We'll see," answered Santos. "I'll accept your money now-for my best efforts-but instead of your flying to London, have London fly to Paris. Tomorrow morning. When he arrives at the Pont-Royal, you'll call me-I'll give you my private number, of course-and we'll play the Soviets' game. Exchange for exchange, like walking across a bridge with our respective prisoners in tow. The money for the information."

"You're crazy, Santos. My clients don't expose themselves that way. You just lost the rest of the three million."

"Why not try them? They could always hire a blind, couldn't they? An innocent tourist with a false bottom in his or her Louis Vuitton carryon? No alarms are set off with paper. Try it! It is the only way you'll get what you want, monsieur."

"I'll do what I can," said Bourne.

"Here is my telephone." Santos picked up a prearranged card from the table with numbers scrawled across it. "Call me when London arrives. In the meantime, I assure you, you will be watched."

"You're a real swell guy."

"I'll escort you to the elevator."

Marie sat up in bed, sipping hot tea in the dark room, listening to the sounds of Paris outside the windows. Not only was sleep impossible, but it was intolerable, a waste of time when every hour counted. She had taken the earliest flight from Marseilles to Paris and had gone directly to the Meunce on the rue de Rivoli, the same hotel where she had waited thirteen years ago, waited for a man to listen to reason or lose his life, and in doing so, losing a large part of hers. She had ordered a pot of tea then, and he had come back to her; she ordered tea now from the night floor steward, absently perhaps, as if the repeated ritual might bring about a repetition of his appearance so long ago.

Oh, God, she had seen him! It was no illusion, no mistake, it was David! She had left the hotel at midmorning and begun wandering, going down the list she had made on the plane, heading from one location to another without any logical sequence in mind, simply following the succession of places as they had come to her-that was her sequence. It was a lesson she had learned from Jason Bourne thirteen years ago: When running or hunting, analyze your options but remember your first. It's usually the cleanest and the best. Most of the time you'll take it.

So she had followed the list, from the pier of the Bateau Mouche at the base of the avenue George V to the bank on the Madeleine ... to the Trocadéro. She had wandered aimlessly along the terraces of the last, as if in a trance, looking for a statue she could not remember, jostled by the intermittent groups of tourists led by loud, officious guides. The huge statues all began to look alike; she had felt light-headed. The late August sun was blinding. She was about to sit down on a marble bench, remembering yet another dictate from Jason Bourne: Rest is a weapon. Suddenly, up ahead, she saw a man wearing a cap and a dark V-necked sweater; he had turned and raced toward the palatial stone steps that led to the avenue Gustave V. She knew that run, that stride; she knew it better than anyone! How often had she watched him-frequently from behind bleachers, sight unseen-as he had pounded around the university track, ridding himself of the furies that had gripped him. It was David! She had leaped up from the bench and raced after him.

"David! David, it's me! ... Jason!"

She had collided with a tour guide leading a group of Japanese. The man was incensed; she was furious, so she furiously pummeled her way through the astonished Orientals, the majority shorter than she was, but her superior sight lines were no help. Her husband had disappeared. Where had he gone? Into the gardens? Into the street with the crowds and the traffic from the Pont d'Iéna? For Christ's sake, where?

"Jason!" she had screamed at the top of her voice. "Jason, come back!"

People had looked at her, some with the empathetic glances of lovers burned, most simply disapproving. She had run down the never-ending steps to the street, spending-how long a time she could not recall-searching for him. Finally, in exhaustion, she had taken a taxi back to the Meurice. In a daze, she reached her room and fell on the bed, refusing to let the tears come. It was no time for tears. It was a time for a brief rest and food; energy to be restored, the lessons of Jason Bourne. Then back into the streets, the hunt to continue. And as she lay there, staring at the wall, she felt a swelling in her chest, in her lungs perhaps, and it was accompanied by a sense of passive elation. As she was looking for David, he was looking for her. Her husband had not run away, even Jason Bourne had not run away. Neither part of the same man could have seen her. There had been another unknown reason for the sudden, hurried exit from the Trocadéro, but there was only one reason for his being at the Trocadéro. He, too, was searching what memories he had of Paris thirteen years ago. He, too, understood that somewhere, someplace in those memories he would find her.

She had rested, ordered room service and two hours later gone out again into the streets.

Now, at the moment, as she drank her tea, she could not wait for the light to come. The day ahead was meant for searching.

"Bernardine!"

"Mon Dieu, it is four o'clock in the morning, so I can assume you have something vital to tell this seventy-year-old man."

"I've got a problem."

"I think you have many problems, but I suppose it's a minor distinction. What is it?"

"I'm as close as I can be but I need an end man."

"Please speak clearer English, or if you will, far clearer French. It must be an American term, this 'end man.' But then you have so many esoteric phrases. I'm sure someone sits in Langley and thinks them up."

"Come on, I haven't time for your bon mots."

"You come on, my friend. I'm not trying to be clever, I'm trying to wake up. ... There, my feet are on the floor and a cigarette's in my mouth. Now, what is it?"

"My access to the Jackal expects an Englishman to fly over from London this morning with two million eight hundred thousand francs-"

"Far less than you have at your disposal, I assume," interrupted Bernardine. "The Banque Normandie was accommodating, was it not?"

"Very. The money's there, and that Tabouri of yours is a beaut. He tried to sell me real estate in Beirut."

"That Tabouri is a thief-but Beirut is interesting."

"Please."

"Sorry. Go ahead."

"I'm being watched, so I can't go to the bank, and I don't have any Englishman to bring what I can't get to the Pont-Royal."

"That's your problem?"

"Yes."

"Are you willing to part with, say, fifty thousand francs?"

"What for?"

"Tabouri."

"I suppose so."

"You signed papers, of course."

"Of course."

"Sign another paper, handwritten by you and also signed, releasing the money to– Wait a moment, I must go to my desk." There was silence on the line as Bernardine obviously went to another room in his flat; his voice returned. "Allo?"

"I'm here."

"Oh, this is lovely," intoned the former Deuxième specialist. "I sank him in his sailboat off the shoals of the Costa Brava. The sharks had a feeding frenzy; he was so fat and delectable. The name is Antonio Scarzi, a Sardinian who traded drugs for information, but you know nothing about that, of course."

"Of course." Bourne repeated the last name, spelling it out.

"Correct. Seal the envelope, rub a pencil or a pen over your thumb and press your prints along the seal. Then give it to the concierge for Mr. Scarzi."

"Understood. What about the Englishman? This morning? It's only a few hours away."

"The Englishman is not a problem. The morning is-the few hours are. It's a simple matter to transfer funds from one bank to another-buttons are pressed, computers instantly cross-check the data, and, poof, figures are entered on paper. It's quite another thing to collect nearly three million francs in cash, and your access certainly won't accept pounds or dollars for fear of being caught exchanging them or depositing them. Add to this the problem of collecting notes large enough to be part of a bundle small enough to be concealed from customs inspectors. ... Your access, mon ami, has to be aware of these difficulties."